“I’ll vote for plumbing, thank you,” said Gemma, and he realized it was the first time he’d seen her smile all afternoon. The bridge of her nose had turned pink from the sun and the faint dusting of freckles across her cheeks had darkened.
“You all right?” he asked, brushing her cheek with his fingertip.
“Just hot.” She pushed a tendril of damp hair from her brow and looked away.
“I thought—”
A car door slammed nearby. “That came from round the front,” said Gemma, listening. “Someone’s here.” She retraced their steps towards the front of the warehouse and he followed, wondering just what he had meant to say.
A SLENDER, FAIR WOMAN IN JEANS and a yellow tee shirt stood before the door of the warehouse, keys dangling from her hand.
Kincaid called out and she whirled round, looking startled.
“Sorry,” Kincaid said as they reached her. “Didn’t mean to frighten you. We’re with Scotland Yard.” He showed her his warrant card and introduced Gemma, then asked, “Are you Teresa Robbins?”
“An Inspector Coppin rang me.…”
“She’s the local officer on the case. We’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.” Kincaid smiled, hoping to put her at ease.
“But I don’t see how I can possibly help you.” Teresa’s thin face was pleasant, if unremarkable, and bore signs of makeup hastily applied to cover the ravages of weeping.
“You can start by looking round very carefully as we go in. I want you to tell us if you see anything at all out of the ordinary.”
“But why—”
“Could Miss Hammond have come here on Friday night to finish up some work?” Gemma suggested.
Teresa put her keys in the lock. “I suppose it’s possible.” She pulled open the large door and stepped back, but Kincaid motioned her to go first.
It took a moment for Kincaid’s eyes to adjust to the dim interior, which was streaked by sunlight slanting in from the high south and west windows. Then Teresa flipped a switch by the door and electric light chased the shadows from the corners.
The room was large, comprising the first two floors of the building. To the right was an industrial lift serving the upper floors; to the left were offices reached by a catwalk that looked down on the main floor. Halfway along the left-hand wall Kincaid saw the loading bays which he guessed must give access to lorries.
But these features he took in gradually, for first to draw his eyes were the chests. Ceiling-high stacks of square, steel-bound, silver-edged wooden chests filled the room. All bore exotic-looking stamps, in red or black ink, and those nearest him read,
Teresa had stepped a few feet into the room, looking carefully round her. “Everything looks just the way I left it on Friday.”
“When did you last see Miss Hammond?” Kincaid asked.
“Annabelle left about half past five, I think. I was finishing up the accounts and just said ‘Cheerio.’ You know how it is. I didn’t think I wouldn’t see her—” Teresa swallowed hard.
“You worked late?” Gemma gave her a sympathetic smile.
“I usually do. Especially on Friday, so as to be caught up for the week.”
“You said you did the accounts—you do the bookkeeping for the business?” Kincaid asked, wondering if Annabelle Hammond would have confided in her employee. But then she had been engaged to an employee, after all, and he supposed you couldn’t get more democratic than that.
“I’m the chief financial officer.” Teresa smiled shyly. “That sounds a bit glorified for what I actually do. I handle the accounts and the financial planning, but it’s a small business, and we all tend to have a hand in everything.”
“I understand that Annabelle and Reginald Mortimer were engaged. Did that make working together awkward for them? Or for you?”
“Awkward?” Teresa stared at Kincaid.
“Surely they had some conflict over things at work?”
“Sometimes men can be a bit sensitive about their authority,” Gemma added with a glance at Kincaid. “You know the sort of thing.”
Teresa shook her head vehemently. “Not Reg and Annabelle. They agreed about things, they wanted the same things for the company. And Reg … Reg worshiped Annabelle.”
Kincaid thought he detected a hint of wistfulness in Teresa’s voice. Had it been difficult for her, always on the outside, looking in? “When was the wedding to be?” he asked.
“The wedding?” Again Teresa gave them a surprised look, as if the question hadn’t occurred to her. “They’d not set a date. Not an official one, anyway.”
“And how long had they been engaged?”
Teresa frowned. “Coming up on two years, I think.”
“Not much reason to delay a wedding these days—both of them independent, with their families’ approval—”
“But they couldn’t have just an ordinary wedding. They had social obligations, and I doubt Annabelle wanted to spare the time from work just now to plan the sort of affair expected of them.” Teresa put forth this theory with great seriousness, as if determined to convince herself.
